First Trailer for Jon Favreau & J.J. Abrams’ Sci-Fi Show ‘Revolution’

With more than a billion dollars in box office success between them, Jon Favreau and J.J. Abrams are undoubtedly two of the biggest directors in Hollywood today. Now the pair are working together on bringing their unique talents to the small screen for Revolution, an interesting new sci-fi show on NBC.

The show, which also features Eric Kripke (Supernatural) and Bryan Burk (Lost) as Executive Producers, offers an intriguing premise. For an unexplained reason, all technology in the world stops. No TVs, no computers, no cars. Nothing. 15 years later (which is when the series takes place), society has fallen apart and is now run by warring groups and militias. As the first trailer for the show reveals, however, there may be hope in the form of a special flash drive held by the Matheson family.

With its mix of mystery, action, and family drama, the show sounds like it could be the kind of high-concept hit that NBC hasn’t been successful with in the past. (The fact that Jon Favreau is also directing the pilot episode doesn’t hurt, either.)

There’s a lot to like about the trailer for Revolution. Besides the basic premise – which is simple, yet effective – both the effects and action look strong. I was particularly impressed by how well-realized the post-apocalyptic world is fifteen years after technology turns off. Sure, there are some quibbles (like the fact that everyone’s clothes have remained remarkably clean and stylish) but it’s pretty cool seeing a major city like Chicago taken over by nature.

Also, the cast looks promising, particularly Giancarlo Esposito‘s grimacing villain – Captain Tom Neville. Esposito has already endeared himself to TV watchers through his strong work on AMC’s Breaking Bad, and is also busy with the ABC show Once Upon a Time. Hopefully he can continue his hot streak with Revolution.

Revolution raises a lot of interesting questions. What would society be like without technology? How would you adapt? I’m man enough to admit that I probably wouldn’t get too far. Maybe I should spend some more time in the woods working on my survivor skills. You know, just in case.

What do you think of Revolution? Will you be tuning into the show this fall?

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Kahless the Unforgettable 2 years ago

This looks interesting.

And I believe NBC has learned their lesson and will keep this show going for a long time. I have the utmost faith in the network and the executives. Also, I believe President Obama will get us out of this financial situation and we all will live in a grand Ameritopia.

R U kidding me? I will assume you are just a glass half full kind of person but geez, you believe in the network and executives?….come on man, get real! If the show succeeds it will be because of JJ Abrams and Jon Favreau…period.

i’ve kind of stopped watching anything that isn’t on AMC or HBO. most of these network things have a sub standard of acting or little things like people being too good looking that annoy me. at least with shows like breaking bad, boardwalk empire, the walking dead, game of thrones there is an over all better script and acting ability. and with the shorter seasons there are less to no filler episodes just straight into the over arcing plot with great character moments and focus on dialogue.

starting to bend my rules a little recently cause i’m running out of things to watch and the wait between Game of Thrones episodes is excruciating. started watching grimm and eureka but i don’t adore those shows the way i might about boardwalk empire or game of thrones, only exception to that is community and a few cartoons i’m following at the moment (young justice, legend of korra, avengers emh)

This premise has been tried on TV before like Jericho or Jeremiah but is really not all that exciting after the newness wears off and we have seen overgrown freeways for the 100th time.

The only shows that have this work are The Walking Dead but w/o the zombies as the backdrop, it would not be nearly as interesting. (The jury is still out on Dark Skies but it has the alien thing going for it)

Totally! I thought the exact same thing. In fact, I ended up here because I was looking up info on the show to see if it was a “tv version of” or “inspired by” Stirling’s books. Was kinda hoping, actually… :>)

For you and all the people worried about this being cancelled right away like some of the other interesting-ish series that popped up this last season, think about this: This movie will benefit from Hunger Games mania. In RL, there’s an explosion of kids taking archery because of HG, I went to a festival this weekend and saw tons of toy bows and arrows being sold (nearly every kid there had one or was begging their parents for one) because of HG. And so the shots of people trekking through the woods of a dystopian future, armed with bows and arrows — as in the commercial I saw tonight — is only going to feed into that and just may keep this series alive for a while.

Unless it’s REALLY terrible, of course. In which case, the HG comparison will just end up hurting it.

But then, if it’s horrible, I imagine none of us will care if it gets cancelled… :>)

billy burke? really? the dad from Twilight? no… not even going to give this s***-fest a chance. if i want stupid post-apocalyptic drama i’ll watch the walking dead. no thanks nbc. – P.S.,i’m still mad about heroes.

Ummmm…. The water needs to come from a water treatment plant, which won’t be operational….the water would need to be pumped around a grid which also won’t be operational, if you want it hot it will need to be heated by electric…or gas which will need to be ignited by electric. You can of course was all your clothes and body in cold streams but of course you wouldn’t do that every day the sewerage system would also not be working (pumps again) so ye every bugger should be dirty

Water does not require electricity to get to it’s destination when gravity and tanks are employed. It will require a running water source or buckets and man power to fill it. Hot water does not require electricity. It can be left in a bucket in the sun,a solar shower, shallow pool on asphalt or concrete, and lastly fuel can be burned to heat water in a vessel. Clothing can be washed and air dried on a line. Some of you people are in for a rude awakening during the next local disaster.

well they haven’t lost ALL modern tech. Just the tech that relies on electricity. Not saying it’s not significant and we are overly dependent on it but life did manage to get to the 20th century just fine.

And didn’t you know Timmy? losing tech means man’s brian will immediately shrink and we will all revert to Neanderthals!

This certainly looks interesting! And I can already tell some environmental organization found a way to pull the plug on all polluting sources!!!

I will give it a chance for sure.

And to all of you saying that people wouldn’t look so clean without technology, seriously, I can think of this issue in other premises, this on the other hand is happening 15 years after all went off. People would eventually remember how to make or wash clothes without technology. For instance I know how to wash my clothes without a washing machine… it’s not that hard really … exhausting sure!

Same goes for hair, teeth and anything else you can think of regarding personal care. There’s not that much technology needed for the basics!

the clothes dont look hand made to me. i think they at least need to look shabbier. while teeth may still be clean without technology, there would definately be a lot of missing or crooked teeth with out modern dentistry, epically after 15 years in the lawless wilderness. hair could look that good, but without all the modern hair care products, why would you bother with all the effort of having a perfect do in the forest?

I doubt the rest. Hope for the second. Very skeptical anymore to invest in any network TV offerings like this. They ont give them a chance. They all want another “Lost”, but won’t cultivate an audience.

No one on earth knows how to move a magnet (from old speakers, toys, etc.) near a coil of wire. They can’t place 2 unlike metals in a jar of virtually ANY liquid and make a battery and string these in series?

That completely depends, Sneaky. In the S.M. Stirling novels mentioned earlier (“The Change” series), physics is altered by an unknown source (the people in the books jokingly blame it on “space bats”) causing all chemical and explosive reactions above a certain energy level to be dampened (or capped or whatever). Thus, combustion engines no longer work, even if you know exactly how to build one. Gunpowder no longer works, even if you mix the ingredients perfectly. Etc, etc, etc. Point being, without all the info, you don’t know that building batteries is possible in the universe of this show. Presuming that JJ and company have a full mythology figured out for their series, I’m sure they’ll have some explanation for why people don’t simply start rebuilding electrical systems. In fact, like in the aforementioned books, that may be part of the big mystery…

The problem is, in the Stirling universe, reasonable explanation is given that energy is kind-of capped as you said (for eg : fire will only burn slowly, thus the impossibility of using firearms). But in this show, we can see a guy in a room who still has electricity so the “laws of physics were changed” explanation is not very coherent. They might come up with a reasonable justification but I highly doubt it.

Your bound to see snippets of these things in some of the shows. This might be a quest for power kind of show. Fire is pretty easy these days so it will be quest for power in both senses of word. If the writers are smart they will pay some people like us to “GIVE” them ideas. I have done it for free for years. I assume they will be reading this and getting more ideas. I had a huge dialog going on with a writer of “LOST” for a long time. Our banter was in many episodes.

I feel your frustration at getting into a show only to have it cancelled, but let’s be real: the networks don’t cancel shows just to be stupid or evil. They cancel shows because not enough people are watching them to justify the cost of making the show. TV is a business, and — as much as you or I may like some of the more interesting concepts that crop up on networks from time to time — the vast majority of tv viewers are not tuning in. If you were running a network, spent tons of money developing, making, and promoting “The Event” only to have very few people tune in and ad revenue draining away, you’d eventually make the same decision they did, no matter how much you personally liked the show. And, if you didn’t make that same decision, you’d be fired and someone else would make that decision. The fact that not enough people like interesting or challenging shows to make them profitable is not the network execs’ fault. It’s the fault of legions of dumb tv viewers who only tune in for stupid, repetitive junk week after week. Blame them.

The advantage of no A listers means the show can run lean and it will not be a drag on NBC’s budget therefore if it’s a good show there is no reason to kill it even with weak numbers. The executives need to understand that they are competing with 600 channels these days and a 10 million following is actually going to be the new norm. So NBC executives hear me and don’t be morons and cancel the show just as it starts to pick up steam like all of you do. Another good thing about the cast is that there is more money for sets,props,special effects,and money to pay the “little people” behind the scenes magic. You know the everyday working stiffs fighting to save their average jobs and homes. NBC show them some love first.
I am available for consultation. LOL

I’m really mixed on this. On one hand it may be great, on the other it’s probably Teranova all over again; with an interesting premise, filled with plot wholes that lead me to compelling viewing for a season at most.

The show looks fun but I do have questions …if all electricity is blocked then why are people still alive ….our braines ,body cells ect.use electricity …I fact that’s how apple’s iPad screen works ..with our own electricity interacting with the pad …so how do they explain this because our electric capacity is higher then that of a battery …..

Not hooked yet, but getting there. Is missing something? Maybe SUPERNATURAL theme or unearthly agenda? Going back to the dark ages with no electricity is interesting, but where is the darwinistic change. Escalation of animal species or human devolution. Maybe still working on that or some other mystery i suppose? Nevertheless, I will check it out. Still pissed that Fringe might get cancelled!!!

Where I used to live there was no “running” water, we got all our drinking, washing, cooking water from rain water tanks.
The only utilities were phone and power, which was so unreliable I had to build a UPS, with a windmill to charge the batteries, the phone service wasn’t that much better, we lost it EVERY winter or any time when termites ate the cables.
In the laundry/bathroom there was an old copper in the corner we used to heat bath water and do clothes in.
The Loo was a “thunder box” I had to empty once a week.
Most of our cooking was done on a woodstove.

And no, it wasn’t a hippy commune and I had a 9 to 5 office job.

My point here is that it’s not that hard to live without tech, just takes a tad more effort!

It’s NBC, so that’s a NO for me. I don’t trust them to stick it out. They are the “drive by” network. They throw something out there and then run away from it as fast as they can. I’m sorry NBC, but my time has a value to me. If it doesn’t have a value to you, then I’m not going to risk wasting it on your programming.

This seems to be very similar to S.M. Stirling’s series: The Change. Starting with the book Dies the Fire. I know the difference seems to be that the power/technology can be turned back on, but still, it sounds a little too similar.

My only reservation is the fear that I will get into it and devote time to it, then it will be cancelled. It has happened to so many shows I watch, like The Event, Chase, and ABC’s FlashForward (still mad about that one). There are so many comedies out right now, but I personally only like raunchy stand-up comedy, not PG fluff (although Modern Family is pretty good). I’m ready for some good SciFi again!!

Just Announced. The show will be filmed here in Wilmington NC taking over the space recently left vacant by One Tree Hill. Should be interesting and will be a boon to the economy down here..With plenty of rural options for filming plus urban/suburban areas they couldnt have picked a better place.. Good Luck to the show

It is a shame this is an NBC television series. They have a long standing tradition of cancelling anything Sci-Fi at the drop of a hat. Even with a good concept like this it probably won’t make it past episode 6 and would be lucky to see one full season. It is not even worth it to even invest the time in something that is doomed from the onset by the broadcast corporation televising it.